Oldest mountain bike in UK?

[legrandefromage]

As before, there is a very early MBK on the site somewhere along with the obvious Stumpjumpers and Ritch-Tea biscuits plus plenty of imports baring UK brand names.

The Saracen/ Evans prototypes that surfaced a few years ago should be held up as the 'earliest UK' MTB unless some other prototype pops up and shows itself.

As written many pages ago, the Apps thing was always to be treated as a separate timeline but as it turns out it does play a part in the whole - especially if you go back to that 'Man v Horse' event which saw a few well known international names mixing it up and then riders/ builders/ engineers chatting in the Surrey mud.

I love the fact that this stirs up a few of the frothy mouthed as its just not what happened in their fuzzy memories or allowed in their equally narrow worlds.

The mid 1980's is the nebulous hazy cloud that gave us the MTB as we know it, in fact what this site seems to coalesce around - RetroSpuds' beloved 'nimble race machine'. Not the rapidly out of date Rangers, 'traditional' looking Evans, Stumpjumpers etc etc.

New XC bikes burst out into the frenzy that was the late 1980's fluorescent MTB scene imprinting impressionable young minds with the burning after image of an Alpine Stars paint job or a fluoro Marin or the ubiquitous Fat Willy's Surf Shack sticker.

I could argue that danson67s' February 1986 Overbury's Pioneer is the 'oldest mountain bike' in the UK (its build number 3 so there are two others out there, maybe) as the others were copies of copies. His Pioneer was one of the first to eschew the fat tyred road/cyclocross Ritchey look and go all out for custom designed fast cross country bike with technical ability - but that would be far too controversial and should be put down to my recent head injury...

Maybe.

(here's a Pioneer from 1985! viewtopic.php?f=1&t=108361&p=2886122&hilit=pioneer#p2885710)

 

[drcarlos]

Re:

So here's the extract of the conversation I had with Drew:





Carl.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Been chatting to drew Lawson from muddyfox. According to drew their first s&g branded muddyfoxes hit the shops in 82/83.
Also s&g was a finance house behind the venture and nothing to do with s&g cycles. He cannot remember if they beat ridgeback to the punch but it was close apparently. Both would appear to predate the Evans saracens.
Carl

Hi Carl. I remember well the S&G shop in Cavendish Street, London W1 and Also Beta Bikes shop in West Hampstead home of Ridgeback distributers Madison and the 'Freewheel' mail order catalogue. I was a frequent visitor to both shops circa 1984-88.

Thanks for posting your interview with Drew Lawson and what he says fits in with what I have heard from others. The only comment of Drew's I would question is "We where certainly the first 100% European MTB company..." S&G certainly sold other bikes apart from MTBs including those from the French manufacturer they acquired and I am pretty sure that Muddy Fox started out as a Brand of S&G Cycles and not a company in its own right.
In the same way Ridgeback was the MTB brand of Madison whilst Saracen and Dawes made road bikes before they made MTBs. To my knowledge first European company set up entirely with the intention of making and selling mountain bikes was Cleland who sold their first bicycle in late 1982 though did not get round to registering at companies house until 1983.

Muddy Fox's early marketting focused on them having the largest range of mountain bikes. This was because they re-badged and offered the entire range of Japanese MTBs made by Araya. In fact the 'Muddy Fox' name started off as an Araya brand.

Here are the Araya catalogues from 1983-85. Prior to 1983 Araya did not manufacture complete mountain-bikes.
http://araya-rinkai.jp/wp/wp-content/up ... 983-85.pdf

The most important thing about Muddy Fox is the vigor with which they promoted mountain-biking in the UK. They above all other companies brought mountain-bikes and mountainbiking to the puplic consciousness. Mostly through their marketing, especially of the 'Courier' but also through their sponsorship of racing events which started as early as May 1984.

With regards of who was first to sell mass-produdced imported mountain bikes in Britain? In have found claims to that Madison's Ridgebacks were first in their 1984 'Freewheel' mail order catalogue.
I can not find any contemporary claims from Muddy Fox that they were first to offer mass-produced MTBs into the UK market.

At the time the 'Freewheel' catalogue was published annually at the beginning of each year with the first year MTBs were included being 1983. This would suggest they were offering MTBs from early 1983 though I do remember that some new items took a while to come into stock and so where not available when the catalogue was first published.

 

[sinnerman]

Re:

An interesting heading on this current ebay listing.

Oldest mountain bike in the UK.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Oldest-Vinta ... %7Ciid%3A1

 

[legrandefromage]

Re: Re:

An interesting heading on this current ebay listing.

Oldest mountain bike in the UK.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Oldest-Vinta ... %7Ciid%3A1

It is the very very silly season.

 

[drcarlos]

So probably a personal import from someone BITD. If anyone has a Breezer, Ritchey or Mountainbikes bike in the UK it will be older as will an original Stumpy. The UK brand bikes we a talking about will also be more of a draw here too. It's really a bit of a non event isn't it.

Carl.

 

[legrandefromage]

Re: Re:

An interesting heading on this current ebay listing.

Oldest mountain bike in the UK.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Oldest-Vinta ... %7Ciid%3A1

Its this one, a bit of a shame the seller could be talking a lot of toot

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=236636&hilit=diamond&start=40

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re: Re:

An interesting heading on this current ebay listing.

Oldest mountain bike in the UK.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Oldest-Vinta ... %7Ciid%3A1

The "Oldest mountain bike in the UK?" in the eBay listing is posed as a question and not a statement implying that the seller is unsure of its provenance.

Of course the oldest mountain bike in the UK today. could have spent most of its life elsewhere. The seller has not suggested that it was imported to the UK straight after it was manufactured in 1982.

The advert goes on to state:
"This is possibly the oldest mountainbike currently in the UK, as it predates Richard Grant and Norman Hillier of Covent Garden Cycles documented 1983 Ritchey Mountainbike imports.
This is a very rare collectable mountainbike from 1982, a vintage Diamondback Ridge Runner, complete with its original decals and paint. It has a verified 1982 serial number"...

The facts are that first bike that Richard Grant's imported apeared on the cover of Bicycling magazine in February 1983 does not tell us when it was imported, just when it appeared in the magazine. Simmilarilly we know that Norman Hiller's Ritchey was around in 1983 but not the date it arrived.

If I was working for Diamond Back in 1983/4 and knew that Ridgeback's claim to be the first company to import production mountain bikes to the UK was wrong I would have reported them to the Advertising Standards Authority. The fact that Ridgeback are still making this claim today proves that their claim was, and is justified.

In any case their were British frame builder's making copies of Ritchey mountain bikes in 1981 the same year this second generation Range-Rider was ridden up Snowdon by Nick Crane.

 

[sinnerman]

I think if there was an unequivocal answer to the OPs question, thats it for me.

I think it was clear from the ebay listing a lot of emphasis was being placed on its history in the market at the time, suggested or not, the price reflects this entirely.

 

[Justonemorebike]

Re:

Graham good answer, you really should write a book!